Rep. Adam Kinzinger: Freeze Putin's Assets

Rep. Adam Kinzinger wants the United States to freeze Russian President Vladimir Putin's assets to get his attention on the Ukrainian border issue.

"I think we need to make him an international pariah," Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican, said Tuesday on Fox News Channel's "On the Record with Greta Van Susteren."

Freezing Putin's assets wouldn't be an easy process, Kinzinger acknowledged, but it would hit him hard because he is estimated to be one of richest people in the world "from loot he's taken from the state of Russia."

Acccording to Bloomberg News, Russian billionaires are horrified that Putin's attempts to grab parts of eastern Ukraine will make the country an outcast. Kinzinger said that while Putin is concerned about how he is perceived in Russia, he also wants world opinion on his side.

The United States says Russia is at least partly to blame for the downing of a Malaysia Airlines jet last week that killed 298 people. A Russian-made rocket fired by Russian-aligned Ukrainian separatists is thought to have taken down the airliner.

"This has spilled out from the borders of Ukraine to now affecting innocent people" from other countries, Kinzinger told Fox News. Most of the plane's passengers were Dutch, and several other countries were represented.

Kinzinger said that while President Barack Obama is doing an "OK job" of trying pressure the Europeans to join in tougher sanctions, Obama should devote more attention to the issue and stop attending so many fundraisers.

He noted that Russia already has taken over Georgia and Crimea, and now is in eastern Ukraine.

"What's next?" Kinzinger said. "Something is going to be next unless he's stood up against."